Jen Merrill's Blog, page 27

Don’t make your monkey fling poo…and other things I never thought I’d say to get my kid out of bed

When A was an infant, he wasn’t the greatest sleeper. No, wait, let me rephrase that. He avoided the sweet blessed release of slumber like I avoid inclement weather…with a lot of screaming and making others miserable if it’s forced upon me. He liked the awake time, is what I am saying here. My oldest …

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When everything is a battle, which ones do you choose?

“Pick your battles.” Every mom has heard that piece of advice, starting from the very first time her precious snowflake uttered the word “NO!” with a vehemence not to be believed, in a volume rivaling that of an F-16, with a stomp of a foot and crossing of arms foreshadowing the teen years. I’ve been …

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Lucky Halftime Fat Tire

When I first met Tom, he was the quintessential band geek. For god’s sake, we met at band camp. He ate, drank, breathed, lived all things band and drum corps. He knew the top corps since the beginning of time, could list in chronological order the Bands of America Marching Band Championship winners, and read …

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The Long Winter…field trip

Did you ever read the Little House series? RememberThe Long Winter? That one was always my favorite of the bunch. It reads almost like a kiddie horror novel for mollycoddled suburban children. It starts off so innocently, with a hot summer day out in the fields, and then gradually descends into a battle to the …

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How to survive a Chicago winter polar vortex without losing your mind

Oh, who am I kidding? My mind is half gone on any given day, and now that I’ve been imprisoned by the PolarVortexPocalypse it’s toast. I haven’t set foot outside the house in roughly 72 hours, the boys even longer. Guess what level of Cabin Fever we’ve reached. If you reckoned the Seventh Circle of …

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Once upon a time I chose a word

Once upon a time…ok, four years ago…I said good riddance to anything resembling a New Year’s Resolution and instead picked a word of the year. Something through which to observe, interpret, and respond to the world. A semantic pair of glasses, if you will. 2011 the word wasstrong, which was the best word I could …

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Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits

And sometimes I sits and curse whatever knocked my blog offline in the middle of NaBloPoMo. And then I sits and thinks some more and eventually just say “screw it,” because I was fighting burnout anyway and this was obviously the universe sayinghey Jen,take some time off on me, and who am I to argue …

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I was given the number 6

There’s a meme meandering around Facebook where you are given a number and that’s how many unknown items you are to share about yourself. I’ve put it off for several days because really, I’ve had a blog for just shy of eight years, what the hell is left that I haven’t already shared? At this point it’s toejam descriptions and the combination to my bike lock. I also wasn’t sure if I was supposed to change my profile picture to a platypus, a rainbow zebra, or just the standard Facebook meme gir...

My chameleon life

I am a flutist.

I want to practice and improve. Watch YouTube videos of masterclasses and recitals, attend concerts every week. Focus on my pedagogy, so my students can benefit from what I learn and share. Write a method book because even after 20-odd years of teaching Istill haven’t found one that suits the individual needs of my students. Dive into a new piece of music and only come up for air when I’m good and ready, and to solo with the wind ensemble, instead of putting it off another year...

My inner child is a 12 year old boy and my 12 year old son won’t play with me

A had a class at the planetarium today. It’s no Air and Space Museum, but it’s a good little museum on a beautiful piece of land out in the lake. The biggest PITA downside is that it took us over 2 hours to get there this morning and over an hour to get home this afternoon. I’m pooped.

Before the class he and some of the other kids meandered through the exhibits. I caught up to them at the different stations about the planets (no Pluto, natch).

Me: “Hey, A! Uranus is over there!”

A:

Me: “Uranus!...